


take me back to the night we met

by imadetheline



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anidala, F/M, Kinda?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27855398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadetheline/pseuds/imadetheline
Summary: “Ani, you carry the whole galaxy on your shoulders,” Padme says, grabbing at Anakin’s sleeve, stopping his turn.His laugh is humorless and choked. Padme doesn’t have to see him to know he’s trying his hardest to hold back tears. “That’s kinda my whole job. You know, the chosen one and all that.”
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 14
Kudos: 86





	take me back to the night we met

**Author's Note:**

> title and lyrics from the night we met by lord huron
> 
> this started out as an attempt at writing fluff but somehow spiraled into angst. still kinda fluffy tho I think... maybe. Anyway, hope you guys like it!

_I had all and then most of you_   
_Some and now none of you_   
_Take me back to the night we met_   
_I don't know what I'm supposed to do_   
_Haunted by the ghost of you_   
_Oh, take me back to the night we met_

_When the night was full of terrors_   
_And your eyes were filled with tears_

_\- Lord Huron_

<<<>>>

“Ani, you carry the whole galaxy on your shoulders,” Padme says, grabbing at Anakin’s sleeve, stopping his turn.

His laugh is humorless and choked. Padme doesn’t have to see him to know he’s trying his hardest to hold back tears. “That’s kinda my whole job. You know, the chosen one and all that.”

Her hand drifts from his sleeve to his wrist, his flesh one. It’s warm under her fingers, and she tugs lightly. He doesn’t fight her, following her lead and turning to face her. She catches sight of the tears reflecting the lights of Coruscant outside their balcony before he ducks his head, hiding his eyes from her. She steps forward, looking up at him, her heart weighted with his sadness. She wants to save him, save them all, from this war. All she can do is squeeze his hand and tilt his head up so she can look into his eyes, the blue eyes she loves so much. Her hand drifts to his cheek, softly running her thumb over his cheekbone, tears catching on her skin. She doesn’t mind. “There are people who love you, Anakin, who would gladly take some of the weight you carry.”

His eyes squeeze shut, and her heart clenches as his head turns to press a featherlight kiss to her palm. His metal hand comes up to cover her’s resting on his cheek, and he turns back to her, “I could never place that burden on you, Padme. You mean too much to me. The same with Ob-wan, Ahsoka, Rex. The only way I keep it from weighing on you is by holding it myself. And I don’t regret that.”

She wants to argue, tell him they’re married, what weighs on him weighs on her, and her heart is aching, but it’s not the time. Her eyes flit over his features, trying to pull the sadness and weariness she can see etched in every line out of him. Instead, her hand drifts to the back of his head, and she tugs him down into a hug. 

His arms automatically encircle her, and his head drops to her shoulder unceremoniously. She cards her hands through his hair, feeling the golden strands slip through her fingers. She won’t let Anakin do the same. It’s lighter than a whisper, “I understand, Anakin. And when it gets too heavy, I’m here. I’m always here.” His arms tighten around her, and she knows he’s heard.

They don’t separate for a long time, the flashing lights and constant noise of Coruscant the backdrop for their shared comfort and sadness. 

<<<>>>

“Anakin, I’m here. I’m here. I promised I would be,” she almost yells, the burning lava of Mustafar roaring around them. The heat is overpowering, but Anakin is standing there, so close, his eyes a sickening shade of yellow. The distance between them is too much, but the blue light radiating from his ignited lightsaber is a line in the sand between them. 

She hesitates and steps into the light of his deadly blade. She knows she’s crying, but it doesn’t matter. “Anakin, please, let it go. You’ve carried it long enough. Set it down, leave with me. We can still be a family.” Her hand comes up to her belly, almost unconsciously. She feels a small kick and wants to scream.

Anakin’s face is contorted in flashes of rage and sadness, his lightsaber hanging limply by his side. Padme breathes in, dust and soot coating her lungs, and takes another step forward. Anakin doesn’t move, so she dares another, and another. When she’s close enough to see the unspilled tears lining his eyes, he speaks. It’s hoarse but not unrecognizable, “I don’t know how. I-” His voice breaks. Her heart cracks alongside it. “I don’t know how to set it down.”

She steps forward one last time. He’s within reach, and so reach she does. His blade disappears as she wraps her arms around him. His heartbeat is steady against her ear. “I know,” she whispers, recalling a similar conversation on their balcony when she’d thought this could last forever. The knife burns her palm more than any fire she’s ever felt as she buries it in her husband’s gut.

His forced exhale as she pulls the knife from his skin and tosses it across the platform behind her, snaps the last grip on her resolve. She can’t look at the cursed weapon as his heartbeat stutters. She catches him as he falls, and they both sink towards the platform beneath their feet. The lava thunders and rages behind them. She pays it no mind, cradling Anakin’s head in her lap.

His hand twitches around his lightsaber. Padme sees it turn towards her, but then he coughs, and his grip loosens. She expects it to fall heavily to the ground beside them, but instead, it skids across the platform in a last display of the Anakin she knows, resting far out of his reach. Her gaze trails back, and she doesn’t want to look, but she must. Blood coats his lips, and he coughs again, but his eyes are now a faded blue. 

The tears she thought had abandoned her, had thought she was too numb and broken for, return, and she sobs, clutching at her husband’s robes, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Anakin.”

His hand, lacking the warmth she remembers as life leaks from the wound she inflicted but still carrying his same gentleness, raises shakily to brush the hair from her face. His eyes dart to her stomach before meeting her eyes. Their tears are the same when he speaks, “Keep them safe.” She nods vehemently, the world beyond his eyes part of a different reality, “And… Tell them… tell them I’m sorry.” His words are broken by coughs and stuttered inhales. She glances at the blood soaking through his dark robes, her hands covered in the sticky red. She did this. Oh Force, she did this. 

His words draw her gaze back to his face. His skin is paler now, and his hand falls from her face, instead squeezing her shaking, blood coated hands with weakening fingers. She squeezes back. As his skin loses color, his eyes seem to regain it, the blue becoming more vibrant by the second. And then, a whisper, “Thank you.” His eyes are so blue. She’s drowning.

The heat of Mustafar does little to warm the cooling body in her arms as she cries. She thinks Obi-wan is there, pulling her up. She won’t leave Anakin here, not here, where he would have hated the heat. 

<<<>>>

She doesn’t remember leaving. She doesn’t remember the chancellor’s death or Anakin’s funeral. She insists he be buried on Naboo. No one dares argue with her, her eyes dark and features gaunt. Obi-wan, equally pale, presses a lightsaber into her hands as they stand before the stone mausoleum, the last two to leave. A whispered, “He would have wanted you to have it.” She doesn’t respond as he walks away. Ahsoka lays a hand on her shoulder but doesn’t meet her eyes. Then she, too, is gone.

Padme stares at the weapon for hours in her home before she ignites it. It’s blue, so blue. Anakin’s eyes flash before her, and she turns it off, throwing it across the room. It thuds against the wall and falls innocently to the floor, the metal glinting in the sunlight. She later instructs a servant to store it somewhere unknown to her, too weak to destroy it or look at it any longer.

The first moment she truly experiences is the birth of her children. They bring light back into a shadow-ridden existence, and she pulls herself up from the depths for them, only for them. They grow, and Obi-wan is there, watching over them, and Ahsoka is too, smiling for them when Padme finds she simply cannot.

The galaxy is lighter, and the war is over. Life goes on, though sometimes she still wonders why, but then she holds Luke and Leia close, and she knows. She is here, and they are safe. Anakin is more than a painful memory. She regales the children with stories of his adventures and how much he loved, and how much she knows he loved them. When Obi-wan and Ahsoka hear those, they smile sadly, and Padme sees the unshed tears in both their eyes.

And then one day, a lazy day of vacation at Varykino, Luke finds it. He’s still young, so young in her eyes, as he wanders up to her, metal glinting in his hands. 

Anakin’s lightsaber looks the same as it always did. Her heart stops in her chest, images of blood and fire, but she pushes it away. The weapon is too large in Luke’s hand, and she gently pries it from his fingers before he can hurt himself. “Where did you get this, Luke?”

He smiles brightly, and she sees Anakin so clearly in his eyes, “I found it.”

“How-” she starts.

Luke interjects happily, “Dad showed me.”

She blinks, trying to clear her head, “That’s not-” Padme’s gaze drifts up and there, shimmering and hazy in the sunlight is the ghostly figure of Anakin Skywalker. She doesn’t understand, and her heart isn’t working properly, and she can’t breathe, “Anakin.”

His smile is blinding, and she remembers her heart melting when they were young and he smiled at her like that. Nothing has changed as she looks at him and feels something broken inside stitch together, still imperfect but shattered no more. 

“Padme,” is all he says, and it’s the forgiveness she’s never given herself contained in one word. It echoes through her. Suddenly, the lightsaber is slipping from her grasp, and she’s running and throwing herself into his arms. She knows this shouldn’t work, but somehow he catches her, and he’s warm as he wraps her into his arms.

She pulls back a little, still wrapped up in him, and gazes at him for the first time in years. “Your eyes are so blue.” He laughs and kisses her, and it’s real and safe, and there’s no weight on either of their shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> If you guys liked it leave a comment. They make my day! Seriously I love reading them so please leave me one cause they motivate me to write more! if you guys have ideas for other stories send me an ask on tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/imadetheline) or just yell about stuff with me. Info about me and all my other tumblrs are [here](https://infoabtmaddie.carrd.co/#)


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